The Aardfather Book 1: Sewn In Ashes
by FrancineFordCoppola
Summary: Arthur read has long dreamed of ruling the city of Elwood. little could he predict that in all of his years of sociopathic daydreaming that he would have to take control of the citiy's dark criminal underbelly. When Francine comes to class one day with an endless supply of cocaine, and enough muscle to push it on their classmates, Arthur finds the means to make his dream a reality.
1. prologue

Prologue

It is midnight at Elwood general hospital. A bunny watches her husband's doomed heart surgery, a nine-year-old monkey is told that her legs will never work again, a father awaits the birth of his stillborn son, and an aardvark sits in his hospital bed for no reason at all. The aardvark had a reason to be there, but God had none. God had little to do with Elwood in those days. Perhaps it was the smog that covered the city, that obscured the skies. God would not look at this place anyway, not after what Arthur had done to it.

He awaited the arrival of an old friend as he hid his cane under the bed so that his visitor would think his legs were still shattered.

"It's good to see you again Arthur. I hope you're still comfy." More beast than bear, the Brain smelled awful. His green flesh caught more light than the white walls around him.

"Actually it has been a bit of a bore, Alan."

"My name is no longer Alan. I told you this, remember?"

"Apologies, Mr. Hyde."

His one open eye widened as he pointed his rotten grin at Arthur. "I'm sorry to hear you've been bored, I wouldn't want your misery to extend too far outside of my visits."

"That's kind of you Alan. Now let's get to business."

He pulled a black bag out from his cape. "Wanna guess this one?"

"Just get on with it." He almost said yes to stave off the boredom, but he would rather have Brain out as soon as possible.

He reached in a grabbed grey and curly hair, and grandma Thora's cold dead eyes greeted Arthur. Blood dripped to the floor, and Brain smiled hoping that this time it would mean something to Arthur.

Arthur was glad that Brain was simply killing his relatives. Brain could not know how terrified he was of losing his money.

"She screamed, Arthur." He lied, as he pointed to her face. "You can still see it frozen on her face."

Arthur laughed a hollow laugh. "she wouldn't scream. I know now that you're a liar Alan."

Brain threw the head at the foot of Arthur's bed. "I'll be back again soon, I promise you." He began to walk off into the darkness. "You will feel Arthur. Even if I have to kill every single one of them, I will make you feel."

Arthur chuckled as he walked off and looked out his window. He could barely see the city he was king of, not that there was much left. All that lied past the smog was 5.9 square mile wide crack house. The only value that it had to Arthur was the steady supply of stolen cash register 20s and wasted rent that regularly flowed into his bank account. He hoped that the dealers were still doing their jobs and the coke was still being gobbled up by the useless junkies that his empire was built on, he hoped that Binky was still alive, somewhere. He hoped.


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

Everyday When You're Walking Down the Street

I woke from another nearly sleepless fall night to a pile of unfinished homework at the foot of my bed. A days worth of Mr. Ratburn's unreachable standards were sure to give me yet another night of agony.

"Arthur! Get ready for school!"

"Coming mom!"

I threw on my clothes and ran to the door. I imagined the other kids pretending to be sick, or getting up as slowly as possible to avoid going back another day after what had happened to Binky, but they were cowards. I was afraid of course. who wouldn't be, but I always made sure to run towards the fear, to throw myself at it in the hopes that the fear would subside. Most days it did. As I opened the door I prayed that this would be most days.

Just beyond the door came a torrent of noise

"Sloppy, sloopy, gloppy, gloopy,

Happy-happy, hoopy-hoopy…"

That incessant song. I covered my right ear to block the noise as it came from D.W.'s doorway. Most days I wished the whole doorway would disappear, but this morning he only wished the noise would stop.

To the right I could hear baby Kate. My sweet sister. even the shrillest cry was sweet coming from her. I stopped by the doorway to press my ear against it. I wanted to enter so badly, and watch that sweet smile paint the room with the kind of joy I didn't deserve, but I had no place in there, no place in interrupting such blissful innocence.

"I'll conquer the world for you little dove," I whispered to her. Elwood would be mine one day. I would start with my classmates. I would make Ratburn pay, and the nightmare would be over. I would be their hero. Only then could I face her as a brother.

"Dopey, doffy, screwy, blue-y,

Gooey, chewy, fooey, dewey."

The music was turned up to drown out our nagging mother.

"D.W.! Get out of your room and get ready for school!"

"Fuck you mom!"

I could barely make out D.W.'s voice amongst the torrent of nasty sounds that came from her room. There was something ragged about her voice. Something desperate, like the worst thing that could happen would be somebody walking in on her. Maybe the Binky incident hit her harder than it hit me. Maybe she had given up on life. Maybe. She had a new distraction

My mom caught me staring at the door as I turned away from Kate. "Come downstairs Arthur. I'm making pancakes."

Whatever was beyond that door was too much for mom to face. I contemplated what it could have been as I walked down the stairs.

I caught my mother in the middle of making breakfast. "Eat this up quick. you've only got 10 minutes to get to school."

"So I'm going by myself?"

"Yeah Arthur, you need to start walking more. You don't want to wear the husky sized jeans forever do you?"

Another wonderful bout of sympathy from mom. She knew what Ratburn had done to me, what his workload had done to the other kids. She read about binky's breakdown in the paper, but she wasn't there. She never saw anything like what I had seen that day. She never had the blood of the person she loved sprayed all over her face. She could never know that the very idea of walking to school was an unbearable torture, that every microsecond of what I had experienced that day was burned into my skull, rotting away my fleeting innocence.

She sat down at the table, and served me my pancakes. She caught my eye. Maybe she saw what was inside me. She could see that the small kindness of driving me to school would cut some of the tension.

"I'll… I'll drive you to school honey." She dug into her pancakes.

I could always tell that she was pretending to understand, but we both knew that, since the binky innocent, there would always be a part of me that she could never know. Still she tried.

"Absolutely bus-a-looey

Crazy, lazy, crazy, crazy buuuuuus!"

The songs final crescendo preceded a loud moan from D.W.'s room. There was always something…deranged about that music that set me on edge, but this time I could barely stand to sit still and hear It, as she would surely repeat it. "Can you take me to school now mom?"

"Of course honey."

307 seconds passed. I counted every one until the car pulled up to school. It had been four months since the incident, and everyone else had been on edge.

Elwood elementary was a quaint little school in a quaint little town. All around it were the screams of happy children. Nearly every corner of the suburb looked like the photographs that fill out picture books, but inside the school, the pictures you could take would look like the set photos of a psychological horror film.

Tucked away in the deeper recesses of the school was the darkest little corner of Elwood city. Mr. Ratburns third grade classroom.

I entered the doorway and walked past the halls. So many eyes shifted to me. They all knew where I was going: teachers, staff, older, and younger students. None of them looked me in the eye, not a single one. It must have been so easy for them to ignore my class, and pretend that it never existed.

Finding the class was as easy as turning a single corner after entering. A long, but narrow hallway filled with lockers lead to the classroom. I opened mine. It was number 302, right next to the classroom door. I quietly thanked god that Ratburn hadn't entered the room yet, which left my classmates to their unique little quiets before the storm that was his green jacket.

"Weaklings," I thought to myself. I dared not say it out loud. They could never know how much i hated all of them.

"Arthur!" The only thing worse than the crazy bus music was the voice of buster Baxter. Every time he opened his mouth I prayed that somebody would scratch the nearest chalkboard so I could hear a more bearable sound.

"Hey buster."

Buster was an annoying little prick, but he had his uses. He was eccentric, strange, attention grabbing. He was the perfect friend. I was plain, simple, and forgettable while in Buster's shadow. Nobody would ever expect anything from me, which was exactly how I liked it. I was a quiet observer, hiding in plain sight, waiting for my moment.

"Are you ready to go to class!?" something about buster seemed disjointed. "I'm ready to go to class!"

"I… uh."

"are you excited!?" he blinked hard and snorted "I'm excited Arthur!"

"I'm excited too Buster." I was used to forcing smiles, faking joy, but this was the first time in years that I felt like my false smile looked unnatural. I had never seen Buster like this.

"Are you, are you okay Buster?"

"Yeah Arthur I'm sorry man I'm just a little jacked up. Francine showed us all this new thing and it's been awesome! It's really helped us with our homework and…"

"Whoa hold on buster. Slow down. What did you say?" I was prepared to step over the early grave Buster was eating himself into, hell I would even welcome the notion if he hadn't been my friend for so long, But Buster was on something, and I could not let it kill him too soon.

"Buster you need to tell me what's making you so excited about class."

"Well Francine's in the classroom and she has..."

"That's not what I was…" I interrupted.

"Come on in. Let me show you." Buster grabbed my arm and pulled me into the classroom.

I walked into a tornado. The students were all running around, playing with smiles on their faces. Did they not know what room they were in?

"Not what you were expecting, was it Arthur?" ,Buster smiled, "I mean it's awesome, everyone is happy and there's no stress anymore.."

I turned around, still in awe of what I was seeing. "Yes but how Buster? How is everyone so happy?"

"Well uh… we finished all our homework," suddenly Buster didn't want to speak. A shadow crept over his face.

"It's called cocaine." I turned around. It was Francine, carrying a confidence I had never seen before. Maybe it was the new gold chain she wore around her neck. I realized that Buster was afraid, as he cowered behind my average form.

Francine put her hand on busters shoulder. "It's okay Buster. he's one of us. You're not narking on me." her tone was sweet, but powerful, like hers was the voice of god.

"I'm sorry Francine. I'll leave you two alone now."

I was afraid she would wave him away. Without Buster, I was naked, and alone, but luckily Francine paid little mind to me as I had wanted. She walked off and whispered to several older kids who were standing at the end of the classroom before Ratburn entered.

"Alright class, homework on your desks. Let's get this started." he declared with his nose up. almost pitied Ratburn sometimes. He was so broken from years of disappointment, years of students who just didn't care. I wondered if he felt like the warden of a small prison that was tucked away in the corner of an otherwise happy school, or if he still sat in the blind hope that his deranged methods would one day enlighten his students beyond the limits of the rest of the school.

Mr. Ratburn noticed a few unfamiliar faces sitting casually by the windows. It was only then that I got a good look at them. There was a white bunny, her eyes obscured by her bangs, and two filthy dogs, one grey, and one brown. Their eyes must've met Mr. Ratburn's as he nearly leapt back in fear upon seeing them. "Um…what grade are you students in?"

They gave no response.

After a long silence, the bell rang and Mr. Ratburn cowered behind his briefcase. The older students remained motionless until Ratburn collected himself. They left, eyeing him all the way to the door before giving Francine the thumbs up.

Buster leaned in toward me. "They came the day Francine brought the cocaine."

"Why are they here?" I asked.

Buster peeped over at Francine to make sure she wasn't listening then whispered, "To make sure none of us nark on her mostly. They also help her sell us the stuff." Buster put his head on his desk and groaned, "Why does the bell have to ring so early? I need another fix. I can't wait until after class."

Mr. Ratburn walked around the class noticing the finished homework, his expression becoming happier by the moment. "Class, you've really done well today!" He continued to walk around, passing by Binky's empty desk, shivering before he reached mine only to notice that I was the only one who hadn't complete the assignments.

I looked into Ratburn's eyes and watched them turn from pride to anger. Ratburn moved on to greet the more worthy students. I pitied him at that moment more than ever. Finally, after years of torturing his students and punishing them for the Harvard job he could never obtain, despite his master's degree, Punishing them for the unreturned lust he had held for his female coworkers, punishing them for the sister who refused to challenge her students, punishing them for the control he could never exert over them, punishing them…for his own cowardice. After all that, they finally showed results. He wasn't crazy. He wasn't a monster. He wasn't that weak little ten-year-old boy that couldn't stand up to his own dad. How could I tell him it was all a sham? How could I reveal that the pride of Ratburn's entire life, the result to all of his ridiculed methods was a casual coke dusted chore that his students farted out in an afternoon? The rest of the day was filled with Francine's creepy older students trying to put coke into my hands in the brief break periods between classes.

Finally I was driven home. My father was drunkenly passed out on the sofa, wallowing in his miscarriage of a catering business. My mother sprinted to the counter to finish declaring bankruptcy before she went to her night job at the taxi dispatch service. I didn't care about them or their pathetic miseries. Their failed abortion of a second child. All I wanted was to see Kate before I went to bed.

Passing by the crazy bus music once again, I finally felt worthy to walk in and see her, my baby sister. Nighttime tried to fall in through the window as I opened the door, but a little sun rose in the room as the smile grew on her face. One day she would make the whole world glow, but for now, she was mine. She was my last hope for a future that I thought none of us would ever find, a good future.

I kissed her on the forehead and whispered to her, "You're the only one I care about, Kate. Let the rest of them die so that you can grow up without failure surrounding you." She smiled at me, her infant mind unable to grasp the feelings that arose every time I saw her amongst the whores and failures that filled my household.

"Sloppy, sloopy, gloppy, gloopy,

Happy-happy, hoopy-hoopy,"

That fucking song. It was time to see what was happening in d.w.'s room

I quietly prepared to open the door so as not to disturb Kate.

"Dopey, doffy, screwy, blue-y

Gooey, chewy, fooey, dewey"

I threw open D.W.'s door to find her face buried into a small mountain of coke that was sitting atop her toy box.

"Absolutely bus-a-looey

Crazy, lazy, crazy, crazy bus"

She picked up her head. She barely seemed concious. Her eyes pointed away from her coke dusted nose, and glared at me "Hey!"

Her cry threw me off balance, and I fell to the floor.


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Everybody that you meet

Most of the dream came to me as if through a stained glass window. It was all either highly obscured, or it was merely shadows in the glass. I wonder sometimes if I merely saw the window, and imagined the re. There were woods with trees shaped like wailing figures from some surrealist painting, ground that lost more and more green as I walked across it, there were eyes moving in the shadows beyond the Oaks, and the one thing I could not mistake, a bright yellow school bus, its mouth screamed with a thousand voices: women, men, and some little cries I dared not name.

my grandmother's voice called to me "Arthur."

She cried for me to stare at the side of the bus. On its yellow frame read the name "tomised."

I paced towards it, and the screams grew louder. The trees began to dance.

"Hey!"

The makeshift world of muddled imagery gave way to the real one, a pink shirted second grader with a coke-dusted nose was shaking me awake.

"Are you okay? I didn't mean to scare you."

I had forgotten up until that moment how hard it was to fake emotions. The anger In my response was as raw as the moment it had first risen in my heart. I threw D.W. off of me, and stomped into her room.

The first thing I did was toss her goddamned radio out the window and waited for it to hit the pavement, but I heard nothing, and the music was still blasting. I almost couldn't believe it, and it just made me angrier. I found a tiny mound of cocaine on her desk and some of it was spread into messy lines.

It became clear to me, in that moment, how real the problem this town faced was. It wasn't confined to our classroom like I had thought. This would spread and affect every aspect of the city. It would change. I could almost see it, like a prophecy traced into the grains on her table.

My anger was compressed from a bushfire down to a searing hot coal as I threw her desk over. The crazy bus music was still coming from outside. I grabbed D.W. and I pulled her out of the house, her feet stumbling. I expected her eyes to be on me, like a puppy dog's begging for forgiveness, but they were all over the place. The only focus I found in them was after she sniffled and looked back at her room. I threw open the door and flung her onto the concrete. She crawled to the grass, still delirious from her last bump. Did she even understand what was going on?

I looked out at the lawn and noticed a silence. Her radio was gone. I swore that I hadn't thrown it too far out the window. I figured someone bad stolen it, and shrugged it off to throw my attention onto the garbage that was lying on my lawn.

"Do you have any idea what you're getting into?!"

She didn't respond. She just stood up and tried to walk back into the house, probably for more coke. I grabbed her, and threw her back onto the concrete, holding her down this time.

"Let me go!" She cried as blood dripped from her nose.

"Oh, I'll let you go. I'll let you go back onto the street where you belong!"

"I'm just trying to have some fun. What the hell did I do wrong?"

"What haven't you done wrong! You've endangered Kate! You've endangered our entire family! You've let Francine..." I couldn't believe those words almost escaped my mouth. I thought I had slipped for the first time in years in front of some miserable pile of filth.

"Wait, what was that about Francine?"

I ignored her. "Dad makes $18,000 a year and drinks half of it. Mom barely covers what he drinks. What do you think is going to happen to them? To What happens when the DEA busts down our door and takes the house away? You've almost got a felony quantity in there! You might as well just be selling it."

D.W. gave a nervous eye roll. "Well…"

I lifted myself off of her, breathing heavily. I thought to myself, "what if somebody is already on to us? It's in my house, and I could be implicated."

I turned around and told her, "You're fucking dead to me, you worthless piece of shit. If I ever see you here again, you'll wish that I killed you today."

All of a sudden, she got up and bolted towards me. "No, Arthur please!" the look in her eyes almost made me want to change my mind. I felt like a monster telling her this, but her eyes quickly peeked behind me and she threw her hand past my torso. "Please, just let me grab some coke before I go! Please God just a little bit, I'm begging you!"

I was disgusted, and I threw her back onto the pavement.

She quickly got up. "Please…I'll do anything."

I didn't want to know what "anything" meant, so I turned my back on her and waited for her to walk away.

But still she cried, "I'll- I'll sell coke for you!"

I turned back around and picked her up by the straps of her overalls. "You fucking asked for this."

Before I could even ready my fist, she cried "No, I mean it! I can sell coke for you! Please Arthur."

If only we didn't have eyes, something in them speaks to us on a level that tongues cannot. Even when you're about to hurt someone you despise, you can look in their eyes, and you will always manage to find good in them. That good will always stop you, as long you still have a heart. I set her on her feet and turned around for the final time.

"I know what you are Arthur. I know what you want."

I stopped in the doorway. "What do I want?"

"Power. You want power over your classmates. Over Elwood. Over your own future. Francine took that from you."

"Stop."

"Francine has all the power, and you can't bear that."

"Stop!"

"It will consume you because you have nothing else Arthur."

She'd cut to the core of me. This coked out bitch could see right through me.

"I'm your sister Arthur. No one sees you like I can. Not mom, not dad, not even yourself."

I looked into the door. I could see Kate. I could see my dad picking up one of her formula bottles and taking g, mistaking it for booze. When he noticed It wasn't, he threw it at her. I heard mom screaming at him from the other room, demanding that he get a real job or get out. I heard Kate's cries and the smashing of dry wall. I could almost see the feathers being pulled from her infant wings.

"If we ever put her in any danger, I'll kill you. I'll kill you as many times as I have to. I'll kill your hopes, I'll kill your dreams. I'll kill you in my head every night before I go to sleep, while I dream, and every morning as I wake up. God will cry when he sees what's left of you."

"I promise no one will hurt her. We'll be rich. We'll start small, but we will be rich"

"How?" I refused to show her anything but my back.

"I've got a wealthy benefactor."


	4. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Muffy

an original point of view

I stared at the reflection of the gold-hemmed canopy that hung over my bed, freshly raised as the sun had just risen. Of all the top of the line furnishings I owned, it was the only thing that was distracting gorgeous enough to keep me from looking into my own eyes. Just barely enough of the suns light had entered my room that I could see clearly a few feet ahead of me. The room was emptier without my toys. I'd traded them away for trace morsels of powder.

Still, as much as it had reminded me of my dwindling wealth, the decaying room and the vanishing of the familiar hues my shining toys were easier to look at than my own eyes. The weakness, the confidence that faded more and more after every bump. Looking in my eyes was like watching a flower wilting in the fall.

The wind from my room door's opening teased my hair, and a preschooler with a coke-dusted nose walked towards me with the day's goods. "How much you got for me today," I timidly asked?

"Same as always, same price too." Her dead eyes came alive. "see how I take care of you? Francine would've cut it twice as much and jacked the price up as she went. You and I, we know how to treat it like a business, all professional and the like.

I pulled out some crumbled up twenties from the drawer.

"Exact change, huh?"

At first, all I had was hundreds, sometimes toys when I was out of allowance money, but now my dad had cut me off for failing one of Mr. Ratburn's quizzes. "This is all I've got to my name right now."

"Give me that golden Bionic Bunny, and I can give you even more," she pointed up at the figure standing atop my dresser with a dejected smile on her face.

I stared at it too, the voices in my head screaming, "You don't even like Bionic Bunny. It's a boy's toy. You don't need it. You need coke. You need release."

I shook my head, "What you have there is fine."

She pocketed the money and pulled out a big bag, filled with small baggies. "I've got truckloads of this stuff. If you can get your rich friends on it, I could move it twice as fast, and I could give you a nice discount."

"I'm sorry, the price we agreed on is fine." she couldn't possibly understand. When you have everything, time is the only barrier between you and your desires, so rich kids make up desires like status. If they found out about my secret needs, I would lose any that I had

The second the door closed I glared at the bag in my hand. I knew it was the same amount in the. Same sized bag every two days I received it, but it seemed to shrink each time. Every bump gave me less and less of a high, and the need grew more and more as the unsatisfying days passed.

I searched for some bills, a twenty, a five, a single, anything. All I could find was change. I didn't even have paper and there was none close enough to me that I could get to it without feeling withdrawals. I desperately dumped the contents onto the table, hastily swiping it into makeshift lines. I snorted as much as I could with my bare nose on the table but I only got half of what I wanted from it.

The voices cried "Get more! It's not nearly enough! You can get so much more!" Of all the people I lied to, why did I have to lie to myself as well? I was falling apart. If I didn't control myself, I'd throw it all away chasing the rush of that very first high until I had nothing left.

After I was sure I had gotten every grain, I picked my head up off the table and caught my own eyes in the mirror. My mother echoed in my head "you fucking piece of trash!"

I could still feel the stinging pain on my face.

Soon enough my eyes had welled up with tears. Hard as it was to admit to myself, this was my favorite part. It was like dessert after dinner. The tears melted the dust on my lip. I didn't let a single coke-infused tear fall to the table. It was the closest I could get to that first high. It took away the tears. It took the pan itself away. Now it couldn't even. Bring me comfort. All it could do was keep me from falling apart any further. I needed more

Before I could, I heard a knock on the door "howya doin pookie?"

"Hold on dad!" I swept the rest of the tears off my face, and hid the evidence of my shame in the drawer of my vanity.

He walked in before I could feign a different action. He knows something was happening under his nose." Its time to head to Francine's house darling."

"okay dad. Could I just get one more minute."

"of course angel cakes." He hung at the door for a minute, with pride covering his face, and left.

What was there to be proud of? I hadn't accomplished anything in my life.

I threw any evidence of my addiction out the window, and into the bushes, hoping that it would be blamed on the maid.

By the time my dad had taken me half way to the tiny apartment that Francine's father's meager salary could afford, I spotted Arthur walking down the pathway into a local park. I asked my father if he could let me jump out of the car for a few minutes. I thought that maybe this was it. This was when I could finally get a moment alone with him. I hadn't even caught a glimpse of his eyes, only the corner of one, but already I could feel coldness from them. He had changed so much since what happened with binky. Nobody could see it, but I knew.

I cried, "Hey Arthur!" trying to mask the pathetic need for his attention I had fostered since years before. He didn't seem to hear me and continued on. He quickly found the bench that he must've been looking for and sat down. Brain was on the other side of it greeting him like an acquaintance. I hid like a squirrel behind a tree, quietly listening to what they had to say.

"Have you considered my proposition?" Arthur asked brain, barely quieting his voice enough to ensure the park dwellers could not hear.

"I have". There was meekness to brains voice that sounded like fear. I never knew brain to be afraid, but with the way Arthur was acting lately, fear seemed an appropriate response.

"Well? What have you decided?"

"I wish I could, but I'm not built for that world like you and Francine. My answer is no."

"You're saying no to me?"

"I...I am."

"You're saying no... to me!?" Arthur had once told me of the day he had been invited to brains house. The shame he made Arthur feel was clearly not forgotten that day.

"Well it was an offer and not a demand if I recall."

"Of course." Arthur stood, and put his nose to the sky. I could see his eyes close as he took in the new spring air "What do you see Allen."

I looked out to the park goers that were just beyond the two of them.

"I see people."

"You know what I see, Allen? I see customers. I see a fortune walking around these city streets. I see a city, no, a world ripe for the taking. I see...our future. Do you see it Allen?"

"I see it Arthur." He never heard me say it

The Brain stood up. "What you ask is too much. You want me to risk my safety. You want me to risk my life. That's too much to ask, even for a friend.

"I don't know how to turn coke into crack. I only need you to synthesize it for me. Together we could make more than double the money Francine is making. You would be safe In a quiet little lab. You would be behind the scenes like I will be."

"There is no safe in this world Arthur." The brain walked up to him. And there is no behind the scenes for men like you. The filth you think is at the bottom of your shoe will creep up your leg. It will consume you.

"POOKIE!"

Arthurs head flung back towards my father. i did my best to creep out of his line of sight before entering the car. I refrained from looking at him, lest I met his eyes.

"Did ya' see him, muffin?"

"I did."

"Oh great...there's something I wanted to talk to you about."

My heart dropped into my stomach. He knows, I thought to myself. "what was it?"

He reached into his pocket.

"How did he find it? He can't prove anything with a coke dusted 20

In his hand he held a ring. It was hardly the most beautiful ring I've ever seen, I could even say it was hideous but he held it out to me like it was the most valuable thing he'd ever held in his hand before.

"This was your grandmother's. She gave it to me after I opened up my first store. Her grandfather gave it to her after he had gotten home from the war. The Crosswire family has held it since the days of Lincoln. I want you to have it Muffy."

My eyes welled up with tears and the detail of the ring was lost

"Why are you crying Pookie?"

"It's just, I don't deserve this, I..."

"Yes you do, darling," he interrupted quietly.

Putting his hand on my shoulder, "You're a Crosswire, and more importantly, you're my daughter. I love you so much."

"It's not even a special occasion."

"Every day is a special occasion as long as you're safe and as long as you're happy." He held out his hand, and I grabbed it. I still sometimes wish I hadn't. Even then I knew it would end up in the hands of d.w., or some other dealer would end up using it as a bottle opener. "Thank you dad."

He hugged me, and the sky began to darken as we drove on to Francine's house. It was the last tm anyone would see it. Even then, all I could see was the flames. I was barely able to convince my father to let me leave the car. The whole apartment complex was a fiery inferno, I paced towards the silhouette in front of it. its arms were outstretched, greeting the giant glowing orange torch that was Francine's apartment building. I ran my finger along a rough scar on the ring to calm myself. There was nobody around, no firemen, no cops, and strangely enough, no neighbors.

I couldn't even see anyone peeking out of their windows on the other end of the block. This was a fire that could be seen two towns across and no one was around to see it. It was like everyone was too afraid, but of who?

"Muffy?" The silhouette's arms were at its side. All I could see was a black phantom walking toward me with something glittering around its neck. I watched as it formed into my best friend with her brown hair and her stupid smiling face.

"Hey, sorry I was just finishing something up here."

I looked over her shoulder at the blazing inferno. "What exactly are you doing?"

"just something I wish I'd done a long time ago."

"Um okay, but your house is on fire."

"It's okay I have a new house. My dad just bought it. It's actually on your block."

"R-really?" I did my best to keep up my air of confidence. "That's funny because I don't remember having any dilapidated crack houses on my block."

Both of our laughs were faker than the gold Francine wore around her neck. She must've known the hollowness of every joke, and display of friendship I threw at her. If only I could be honest. How liberating would that be? Maybe if she wasn't thee poor friend. I wouldn't have to parade her through my neighborhood to show my false benevolence to the less fortunate.

Something louder than the cracking of the building's support beams roared behind us. Francine's dad had pulled up in a brand new Bugatti and honked the horn, the horn gesturing for us to come in.

He stuck his head out the window, "Hop on in kids! We're heading to the new house."

I stepped in the car. It smelled of fresh leather. Luckily my shame was incomplete, as none of my coke money paid for this.

"So what address do you have now?"

"7321 Oakton terrace"

"My god. That's the biggest house In the city."

Francine's smile grew wide. "My dad hit it big in Vegas."

Her father looked at me out of the corner of his eye. "Yeah. Yah I did. We've been truly blessed. His face and voice held more fear than I thought could be held in one person.

"We truly are dad. We truly, truly are."

Her father started up the car and we drove into the darkness beyond the flames.


	5. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

Arthur

Hey!

I dreamed of an Elwood that touched the sky. Gone was the pathetic town center that might as well have been a village watering hole. In its place was a sea of gleaming towers made of steel, glittering with their glass windows. above them all stood the greatest structure ever built: a tower that not only reached the heavens, but grabbed them and brought them low.

A hand dragged me down towards the bottom of the great tower, and the music began.

"Laffy loopy floppy floopy"

"Absolutely busalooey"

Every note moved more slowly than the last, and the screams soared.

all the voices were the same. It was all the same men, women, and children. They cried for help that would never arrive, for those who didn't care. I didn't know how, but I knew they deserved it. I knew that the world would be better off without them. I arrived at the bottom. A featureless concrete box held a rusted yellow school bus. Its mouth quit screaming long enough to call my name.

"Arthur. Seek Tomised. Seek the bus."

"Who…who is Tomised?"

"Seek the bus Arthur."

The rusted behemoths eyes glowed, and it roared with its thousand screams

I woke up as night had long fallen and two small freezer bags full of product were on my table. I was captivated by it. I had cut it at least twelve times. There was still barely enough to fill up a briefcase.

"50,000 dollars from these," I thought to myself.

A year's salary was just sitting on my table, delicate enough that a swipe of the hand could obliterate it forever.

Even still at that point I thought to myself, "Just finish grammar school. Just go to college. Become a dentist like your mother told you to. Do you really want this?" In my contemplation, I had focused so intently on the product in front of me that I swear I could make out the grains of the baking soda I'd woven into the pure product. I didn't have time to talk myself out of it as a cold draft fell on my shoulder. Soon enough I realized that it was not a draft, it was breath.

"Hello Arthur." His voice was heavy, and deep. It carried with it a thick Russian accent.

Before he even finished I had flung myself over, knocking over my desk, spilling every last grain of the product I had so carefully cut all over the floor. My shirt had turned from yellow to white as I moaned over what I had just lost. I looked up, tears dripping off my cheek, and my desk light now shining up at him from the floor.

It was binky. His hollow cheek went so deep that most of it was shrouded in darkness. I could see clearly the day when he had attacked Sue Ellen with the xacto knife, and Ratburn cowardly swinging at his cheek with the corner of his briefcase. Was he here to exact revenge on me? I was only a witness to the events of that disastrous day.

"Binky! It's funny seeing you here. What's happening?"

"It's good to see you again, Arthur. I hope I did not frighten you last time we saw each other. I have a souvenir from that day. You see?" He held up the hollow in his cheek so that the light had shone right into it.

"Frightened?" I stuttered. "Of course not. I know I was never in any danger binky."

"Oh but you were in danger Arthur."

My heart slammed into my stomach. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that if you were an inch closer to Sue Ellen that day, I would have done to you what I did to her."

I had kept my cool through most of his visit, but when he told me that, I felt fear, genuine fear. I knew I was doing a poor job in hiding it.

"I felt sorrow for what I had done to her. it was the last time I felt sorrow."

I had never seen someone capable of such violence as I had the day binky had ruined Sue Ellen's face. I couldn't imagine the violence he was capable of now.

"I visited her in the hospital last night. There were no more guards. They must've thought I was still in juvenile detention. She slept so sweetly in her hospital bed. Have you seen her recently?"

"Um. No I haven't."

He smiled "ah so you are afraid eh?"

"Why would I be afraid?" I raised my voice.

All he could do was smile wider, and giggle. "you run from your emotions Arthur. You think you can hide them to be strong. You cannot. You must root them out, and destroy them."

I wiped the tears from my face. "What are you doing here Binky?"

"ah yes. I am getting ahead of myself. For now, at least, I am here to warn you of Francine."

"You think I don't know that she's dangerous?"

"Of course, but you were not careful. Francine knows that D.W. is up to something. It's only a matter of time before she discovers what that something is."

I grabbed a pencil defensively. All it would likely do was make me feel better. "What are you gonna do about it?"

"Do not worry Arthur, I will not hurt you. You have always been good to me, like the time when you brought that pencil to me, knowing that I had no other choice but to punch you for the sake of my reputation with my friends. I care for this city Arthur and I want it to be controlled by men who can lead, men like you. However, it is not your city yet Arthur. I have come here to tell you that you must not fuck with Francine. However much you think you have the upper hand, you must always know that you do not. For she has the mind of two men, and more muscle than anyone in the city. You cannot do this alone Arthur."

"You told me not to fuck with her, and I'm still waiting for the 'or what.'"

"Or this." He brought his face directly into the light. Every detail of the hollowed cheek had been revealed to me, every mangled inch of flesh that had been pushed into the empty side of his face stood out like an ancient relief. The scene it depicted was whatever hell befell him in the past few months.

"But that was Mr. Ratburn's doing!"

"Not entirely. Francine knew I was a threat to her as long as I was in control of the Tough Customers. Don't you remember what happened just before my breaking?"

That was when I remembered it. Binky trembling at his desk as Ratburn passed him, hoping the old rat would forget about the homework he had assigned just the day before. And then I saw it clear as day, Francine raising her hand.

"Mr. Ratburn, wasn't there homework today? We had homework today."

I had shrugged off her comment at the time, but now I remember her smile and her head turning to Binky as the rage filled him. As he grabbed the xacto knife from Mr. Ratburn's desk, as he flayed the flesh from Sue Ellen's bones.

Binky squinted his eyes at me. "She knew just what button to push, she knew it would take only one of Ratburn's bouts of disappointment to drive me over the edge, to plant within me the desire to kill the first thing I could get my hands on."

"Why?"

Binky picked his head up out of the light and pulled a bag out from behind him. "The tough customers"

I remembered the older kids sitting by Francine in the classroom. "Your old gang? That's who has been muscling for her?"

"Very good Arthur." He pulled up my table, some coke dust still stuck to the top of it. "They were the strongest gang in the whole city, if you could call this a city. Hell you can't even call most of its gangs gangs, but they are the power of this cities underground, and Francine desired that power.

I had thought I knew what I was dealing with, but all illusions of an easy victory over her died then.

"Francine cannot be defeated Arthur, not with that muscle behind her.

I found the strength to stand up." Then what are you doing here?"

"I wasn't finished. Nobody can defeat Francine but you." He pulled out a brick of coke from his bag, and threw it on the table."

"Where did you get that?"

"I have my sources Arthur. Don't cut it as much as you did before. Francine is cutting it systematically, so the students will buy more every month. Keep it pure the first time you give it to them, and cut it in greater amounts as you go."

He pulled out a gun, and placed it gently on the table next to the brick.

"I don't need that binky."

"You will. Seek Prunella. She will know what you must do next."

"Wait you don't actually believe she's a psychic do you?"

"Do not make the mistake of disbelieving the greater powers of this world Arthur. There is more power working behind you than you think."

I stepped towards him. He stood his ground. "well why don't you tell me about it then? Give it to me straight."

"A straight answer is not possible."

I snickered "that's what I thought."

He whispered in my ear "ask the bus in your dreams Arthur. See what straight answers you can get from it, and then you will know my meaning."

Binky stepped back into the shadows as I looked down at the gun on the table.

As the warmth returned to the room, I looked up to see only the wall and heard four words echoing throughout my room.

"I'll be watching you."


	6. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

That's the Place to Start

The line to Prunella's room was so long that it stretched across the street. I found a place at a park bench while the line was in a standstill. I used to think the people that believed in psychics were all idiots, but after binky... after my dreams, I couldn't help but think there might be at least something to the supernatural.

My father had traded all my books for a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon a few days before so Fern gave me half of her most recent unfinished manuscript to read. It was a shame that Fern was never published. The language in her stories was so beautiful. I would buy every manuscript, every painting, every musical recording she would create, but there was something about her novels. The father characters were never kind, something bad always happened to them, and they had always done something horrible to their daughters. Something in that spoke to me. Perhaps that was why I enjoyed her fiction so much.

"What are ye' here for?" An old man's voice yelled to the left of me.

"I'm just here to get rid of a bad feeling.

When I turned to him I realized it was my grandpa. I had heard he was in a mental institution For his Alzheimer's. "You're here to see that psychic lady aren't ya'? What do you think of them psychics, huh?"

He obviously didn't recognize me, and I was glad. "I think they're frauds. I think their only purpose is to comfort the weak minded."

His eyes widened. "I like birds. I keep one with me all the time." He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a dead pigeon.

I almost abandoned the line altogether but it was moving anyway. I stood up and turned my back to him, hoping some other poor bastard would get in between us.

"Wait, I like squirrels too!" He grabbed my hand.

"Get off of me, you freak!" I pulled away violently.

His eyes went yellow and began to glow. "Arthur." He spoke with Grandma Thora's voice.

"Grandma?"

"I just wanted you to know I escaped from jail, honey. I won't be visiting but I wanted to be the first to tell you."

"Grandma. What are you doing?"

Grandpa Dave chuckled. His face was hard with the stoicism of a man who had grown stoic under the weight of a thousand lifetimes. "Sorry. I can't say. Love you honey. Goodbye." In an instant, his face fell back to the stoicism of a child's. When his eyes stopped glowing, they were bloodshot. "Ahhhh! She was in me again!" He dropped his pigeon and ran out into the street, screaming obscenities. "The nightmare lady! She's back! She's in me again!

All of a sudden, I began to remember the talks my mom had with my dad in his last days of sobriety. They talked about grandma and grandpa going away. My mom told me that grandma did something very bad to grandpa. My dad started drinking a lot more after that.

As he ran farther away, the whispers in the crowd grew loud enough to obscure his screams. The line moved ever quicker as most of the people in front of me got the fuck out of there. I was eighteenth in line as Prunella's sister, Rhubella, stumbled across me.

"thank you all for your patience. Unfortunately, prunella Deegan is not seeing anyone else today. I have red cards for all of you. If you wish to see her tomorrow, present them and you will jump in front of the..." When she approached me she stopped and stared.

"A Read!" She exclaimed before grabbing my wrist.

Her eyes grew wide. "Are you the son of David?"

I shook her off my wrist. "To my great shame, I am."

She pulled me aside and into the house. She looked in my eyes again. "Oh there is nothing to be ashamed of my dear, at least not in all. Come, you must to see Prunella."

She pulled me past the angry patrons in waiting. "Make way, make way." They moved aside, almost against their will it seemed. The door opened without anyone touching the handle.

Inside, Prunella was talking with a young bunny who wore square shaped glasses. "What are you doing? I'm not finished with James yet!"

Rhubella shooed out James and flung the door shut behind him. "This is a Read. This is the son of David."

"David, son of Thora?"

She cleared her foggy crystal ball and beckoned me over. "Sit, sit."

"Finally, Rhubella. We can be in service to a true Read again."

"What in God's name are you talking about?" My head was reeling.

Rhubella's eyes reflected off the crystal ball and looked directly at me. "With Thora gone and David in his current state, there are no Read's for us to serve."

I looked up at Prunella. Her eyes were already whitening as she rubbed the ball. "You are a son of Tomised, a prince of the city. We must serve you."

"did you say Tomised?"

She responded quickly, almost like she was covering her tracks. "leopold tomised read. He is one of the founders of the city."

"Is?"

"Was. Of course. Apologies. He _was_ one of the founders of Elwood. Now there are two things you wish of us. What are they?"

"Well, the first thing, um. I'd like to know where my grandma Tora is." Purnella's eyes shot to her sister. She was crying for help.

"We don't find people. We tell their futures" Rhubella exclaimed

"Next question!" Prunella rubbed her ball and it began to glow brighter.

"Hold on. I came here for answers. If you won't find my grandma, that's fine, but give me the courtesy of the truth at least.

"Fair enough read." She squinted at me. " Your grandmother can be found, but only if she wishes to be found" she sighed "now please, ask me your second question. I can say no more of Thora without bringing her down upon me."

After the incident with grandpa Dave, I wouldn't dare endanger her. I could not ask her what I truly wanted. "Um, I just want to know my future, that's all."

"You are a good liar in man's eyes Read, but a poor one in mine. You seek the means with which to defeat the red-sweatered one, do you not?"

"Francine, yes."

"It seems you already have the means." Was she referring to the coke that Binky gave me?

I had to confess. "I...I have the product, but I don't have the muscle."

"You are afraid."

"I've never been afraid of death!"

"It is not death of which I speak, Read. It is killing."

"I need someone who can kill for me."

I looked into the ball. Her hands opened up like a curtain, revealing a face within it. It was George.

"Seek the hammer. He will clear your path to greatness."

"George? He's a moose! That's no better than being a dog! And he's dyslexic!"

"Do not judge him by what you find on the surface. Just beneath his holds the coldest killing machine Elwood has to offer, besides one other."

I heard a whisper leave Rhubella's mouth. "Binky."

"Seek him, for he will smash your foes to pieces and you will have your kingdom in Elwood."

The ball cleared, and Purnella's brown irises returned. "Is there anything else you wish of me read?"

"There is one thing. If you can't find Thora, there's someone else id like you to find."

"Who would that be?"

"The man who wrote the crazy bus song."

Prunella's face melted with fear. Her ears sank like a sad puppies, and her confident smile fell to a frown. "As you wish."


	7. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

Arthur

Learn to Work and Play

"So are we clear?"

"Run it over again."

"You kill Francine's man, and we take the coke. It's about a 100k after it's cut. You get 15% of it and everything we make in the future. After we get a coke connect of our own. You get 15% of that plus whatever u can sling yourself."

"You comin' up with a coke line of your own? We can't rob Francine's shipments forever."

"I got a penpal in Turkey. We're working on something right now. For now this shipment will get us through to that point."

George looked me in the eyes. "Why does this guy need to die?"

I honestly had no answer. Before then I could've sworn I had one, but it seemed to disappear the moment I had to say it out loud. Maybe it was just for me, I don't know but it was too late.

"This isn't just about the money. And they told me you didn't ask questions."

"Won't happen again, just needed to know." I didn't know at the time, but I was afraid to ask why.

"I'm assuming you're armed."

He pulled out a brand new baretta, cocked it, and stuffed it in his khakis. Before I could ask, he pulled another one out and gave it to me. "In case you know how to use it.."

"I do." I didn't.

We had no way of knowing how many men Francine would have to pick up the shipment, but we knew it was gonna be at least 5 kilos being picked up. I didn't know for sure, but I had a feeling that meant she was expanding. I counted about 3 kilos in total consumed every three months from the class.

We knew her supplier had dead dropped the coke in the shipping yard, so the only bodies we would leave would be Francine's. The only thing I was afraid of was being outnumbered.

We pulled up past an unguarded fence to the docks, and crept through every secluded place along the shore that we could. Elwood looked beautiful from the shore. Though I could only see the undeveloped waterfront to the south of the shipyard. it was still a sight to behold. The emptiness of the Atlantic, next to the sparsely populated edge of the city. It felt like a new frontier, like we were explorers scoping out the foundations of the next great American city.

"that's where I'm gonna build it." I whispered to George.

"what?" He asked, trying to quiet me.

"Elwood " the city that Elwood was always meant to be."

George remained silent as his eyes pierced every inch of the docks. "got him."

"him?"I asked."I thought there were supposed to be dozens?

"just one." he beckoned me forth. I couldn't believe my eyes. one bunny. That was all she sent to pick up her product, the sole source of her power. Maybe she wasn't as smart as I had thought.

"hubris." George whispered.

He cocked his gun and I did the same before we crept up behind him.

He stood between two of many rows of shipping containers that were bound for God knows where. We picked up our pace after seeing him pull the drugs out of an empty container. The bunny wore a baggy T-shirt and had long brown hair that covered his eyes. His ears flopped over his head as he walked.

"Name is Slink. Founding member of the Tough Customers. Good friend. Shame."

I'd never heard George speak that much to me before. "He's your friend? How long?"

"Whole life."

"Do you care?"

"Business is business. You wanna take the shot?" Little did I know that this would be the closest thing to humanity I would get from him but even now I can't be sure whether or not he cared if I killed him.

But before I could answer, a bullet flew between my ears.

"Down!" George screamed. He pulled us behind a shipping container.

"Stay!" George quickly disappeared behind me.

"Gotcha' bitch." The bunny looked down at me. I couldn't see his eyes, but I could see the smile on his face. "Tryin to steal some drugs aren't ya'?"

"Of course not!" I slowly reached for the gun I had tucked into the back of my pants before our approach. "You know, I really never thought you'd have the balls. I'm gonna take you to Francine seeing as how she's your friend and all."

He motioned his gun for me to stand up but I couldn't move. "You really are a stupid little bear aren't you."

I didn't see it enter his throat, but I saw it leave. A spurt of blood like the discharge of a blunderbuss came out of the right side of his neck. George's gun was still smoking as he walked over the body.

"Up." George gave me a hand.

I stood up and looked over the dying bunny. I whispered to George, "You gonna finish it?"

He said nothing for a moment. He just stood there and let the boy lay there dying.

"No. better to let him die like this. Sends a better message. Save the quick deaths and disappearances for others.

I couldn't let him die like that. I looked down towards him. "By the way, I'm not a bear. I'm an aardvark." I pulled my gun. "let me spell it for you. A-A-R-D-V-A-R-K." I had him in my wasn't convulsing anymore. His face was still. His hair was out of his face, and his eyes were exposed.

"eyes are always the last to go." George grabbed my gun.

He stared at me before the next bullet entered him. His eyes were wild and alive. He didn't move a fucking muscle, but those two blue orbs in his head were wailing "please, let me live." They looked like Kate's eyes when mom and dad would abandon her, scared.

I stepped back. Suddenly I remembered all the years of bullying, back before binky left the group, back before Molly turned the customers into mercenaries. He made me steal stuff so I could be cool. I remembered how much I hated him in that moment when I had gotten caught, how much I wanted him to die. For a moment after George's second gunshot, I felt good, I felt powerful, like I had finally gotten back at him. But that moment disappeared as fast as one of Francine's customers cheap highs.

"Kill it," I thought to myself. "Kill the guilt Kill the fear. Kill the despair, like Binky said." There was no way around it. If I couldn't do this, I couldn't do any of it.

George handed me back my gun. He looked at me. His eyes said nothing as they had seemed to this whole day, but I knew he thought I wasn't cut out for this and I was beginning to agree with him.

I picked up the coke. It was about a kilo. "You throw him into the lake, or display him or whatever you're gonna do. I'm gonna look for the other two drops."

I paced towards the shore as George's footsteps vanished under the sound of the waves.


	8. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

Sue ellen

It comes from the heart

I rubbed lotion on the parts of my face that weren't mine.

In the rapid search for skin donors, the doctors had taken skin from three different people. One black man in his thirties, one dead 45 year old mother of two, and a 15 year old boy who had been the most recent victim of one of their failed heart surgeries.

I never found out where the skin had come from on their bodies, but it was probably for the best. It was bad enough that I spent my first month in the hospital with a black chin that still had a tattoo of a Heart on it, and I didn't need to find out that I as wearing some guys asshole on my face. I can't blame the doctors tough. Considering my condition when I came in, it was a miracle that they could even get what they did. If I was trying to restructure a person's face with the barely usable pieces my doctors had left of mine, I'd take what I could get.

They gave me bleach treatments to try to make my chin look better, but it didn't matter. I was so mangled, that I couldn't even tell which parts of my face were even mine.

The hospital wanted me to feel like I was. Still pretty. I still don't know if it was genuine kindness or an attempt to keep one name off the suicide list for the year, but they sent me a line of luxury beauty products. I guess they thought I'd use the blush to highlight all of the scars, and folds of patched together flesh.

Every morning I had to run my Fingers along the many parts of me the xacto had taken away. I saved my lips and my right eyelid for last. It was the only way I could keep from crying.

I ran the lotion along the two scars on my upper and lower lid which was little more four useless flaps before Dr. McDonald patched It up.

It was time for my proudest feature. It brought such unity to the mangled mess on the front of my head. My left eye was gone the moment binky Stuck his knife in it. The doctor said I had ten percent vision left over after they fixed all the cuts and replaced all the bits of scraped off cornea. I even heard him tell my mother that there was no use in repairing it after the amount of damage binky had done.

I guess I should be thankful that all she cared about was my appearance. Her tenacity with the doctors saved what I could confidently say was a hideous bloodshot, cloudy red orb that, generously, I could consider a human eye. Still, it was better than the flesh that covered the rest of my face. It looked like a dozen rolls of flesh colored toilet paper had been soaked and thrown onto a human head.

There was no time to weep, no time to waste. I wiped the patched up hollow where my left eye had been. I never bothered to clean up more than that when Francine was coming by.

Her life must've had no black spots between our weekly visits. I never covered my face, never combed over the bald spot where they had dug put the broken xacto blade from my skull.

She walked in quietly through the door, silent as a mouse.

"Hey." She wore jeans more torn down than a hood rats, a sweater grayer than it was red, and no bling, but I could see the tan lines of ten rings on her dark fingers.

"Hey there." I sat up in my bed.

"You sound better sue. You're really learning how to form those words now huh?"

"what, so I didn't know before?"

"no, oh god. I'm just saying it sounds like the muscles in your lips are working right again."

"Well thank you Francine."

She sat by my bedside, holding a constantly buzzing phone, but not answering. Eventually she looked at my face. "so how's It been going? What have you been up to?"

"Oh you know, just avoiding mirrors, and trying to distract myself from the crushing loneliness. What about you?"

She awkwardly laughed, and looked down at her phone. She couldn't even acknowledge a straightforward bitchy remark.

Her cheeks were bright red only moments after staring at her phone. "Hold on one second."

She walked out, and I put my head up against the door.

"What the fuck do you mean he's dead... oh yeah, Arthur. I believe that... I hired you all for muscle Molly. If I slink comes back miraculously with the package, and its light, you're losing your job… the hammer? You're telling me the hammer was involved?" she said nothing after, and I heard her put the phone away.

She entered looking as sorry as the last time. She looked down at me, the little cat lying in a hospital bed.

"So it is drugs then."

Her eyes widened. "Excuse me?"

"I thought it was whores you were running. Hell I guess it's better that I wasn't stabbed so that a bunch of sex slaves would be brought to Elwood.

"Sue…"

I looked right at her "I'm passed it. I don't care."

"I would care, sue." Tears moistened her sweater. "I would kill me."

She sat at my bedside, within arm's reach of me. I couldn't touch her shoulder. "You can come by anytime. Assuage your guilt; make a show of how merciful you are. Do whatever. Just be honest when you're in here. If anything else, be that.

She wiped the tears from her eyes. "I will sue. I have to leave." She stood up

"Take some eyeliner with you. You're gonna need to look strong when you face your men."

She turned around. "No I can't take it. It's yours."

I didn't have to say anything. All she had to do was turn around and look at me.

She took the makeup.


	9. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

Francine

A Wonderful Kind of Day

Y'hei sh'lama raba min sh'maya

v'chayim aleinu v'al kol yis'ra'eil v'im'ru

Amein

I hadn't killed anyone yet.

The words I had echoed off the temple walls preceded a silence that I rarely knew in my local temple. Grey stones bounced the words around until they left out of the high open window to mingle with the sounds of the garden beyond.

Even the sounds of the cars picking up and dropping off young scholars, and old rabbis had vanished after my prayer.

"so you're resorting to hiding in your temple huh?" suddenly the silence made sense to me. Nobody would want to be around molly McDonald.

"You fucking dreck!" I flipped around so fast, my prayer Schall almost fell off. "What are you doing, cunt? I was praying!"

"Oh I'm sorry, I thought there was a war on. But if you want to keep running from it then that's fine. I'll just fight the fucking war by myself."

I moved the right side of my prayer Schall away from my hip, revealing the gun behind it.

"We don't go to war unless I say so."

"So you're just gonna let what he did stand?"

"Of course not."

"Then what are you gonna do about it?"

"That's not your business until I make it so."

She stood sideways at me, flashing a golden desert eagle. "Whatever you do, you better get it done quick."

Suddenly, I realized that I was before God and put mine away behind the prayer Schall. "Or what? What exactly happens if I don't?"

"We won't work for somebody that can't pay us."

It was bad enough we had guns in the Temple, but there was an evil presence with us. "Wait this is just about the money?"

"Business is business. Slink fucked up, he got shot. That's it. The important thing is getting product for your customers. You can't let Arthur steal it from you and live."

I sat on the Temple steps as she reached the front of the building. Molly took a seat next to me. "I still can't believe he had it in him. I mean he killed Slink. He was one of our best guys. I always thought it was Buster I had to watch out for, but that four-eyed fuck got the better of me."

"That's why he's dangerous. If there's still a fight left to have, he won't fight straight up. He'll come at you sideways, hit you where you least expect it, how you least expect it."

I stared right at her. "Do you think we can win?"

She couldn't even answer me with her eyes, but I could see it in her frown. "I don't know. With the Hammer on his side, I just don't know."

"But he's just one man."

Molly snickered at me for a moment and pointed toward our ride. After a long ride, we approached my new palacial estate. There were cars filling up my new house's driveway. Some of them belonged to family, some of themto my employees. When I walked into my house, I saw so many faces I didn't recognize. I knew my parents had dozens of family members coming over from Israe, and all over the states, and I knew that Molly had brought over Tough Customers from across the country, but I didn't think there would be over 100 people in my house when I got home.

"Hey honey. I see you brought some of your friends." The fear in my fathers voice chilled my blood.

I thought to myself, "Is this what I am? A monster whose parents are even afraid of her?"

"You okay, honey?"

"Yeah Dad...yeah. I'm fine." His wide happy smile sunk before he left to play the head of the household.

I whispered into Molly's ear. "Bring all your men into the playroom. Tell the adults we're having a 'tea party.'"

I could tell which ones she was going to pick out of the crowd. I knew the moment I saw how they looked at my dad. My family members would greet him with a smile as wide as his and a firm handshake. Molly's men...well they did the exact same thing. You would never know as an onlooker which ones were which.

Here's some advice: when you're looking to pick the monsters out of a crowd, look at the honest ones. Honest people have the most to hide, because all of us are full of shit. Those of us who are truly good have demons and secrets that were poor at hiding from others. The monsters, well, they know just how full of shit to be, just enough to fool us.

Molly shepparded everyone I knew she would into my room.

"I entered the room, calm, authoritative, in control. "alright. You are the toughest customers I have. I'm putting a bounty on Arthur's head. Let the hammer know that we will double arthurs offer to him. Put it out to everyone who owns a gun. Bring me Arthur's fucking balls on a platter, and you get 10,000."

They stared at me blankly, waiting for me to shove them off. When I did, Molly lingered. "that'll get them working harder. Do you know where you're gonna get the product from?"

"I don't know, but this is why I saved half of everything.i have enough for the reward, and enough toi buy another few kilos from Ramone."

"and what if Ramone hears about what happened?"

I shut my door as party goers started to linger in the hall. " what does it matter to him?"

"he's making an investment in us. If he doesn't think we can keep buying his packages, he's gonna sell them to someone else, someone who can keep buying them, someone who can keep making him money Francine."

Before she could continue, my father burst open the door, carrying a parade of guests. " and here's her playroo..."

The moment he saw me, he stopped in his tracks. "oh. Sorry hun." The guests behind him stepped back.

"its okay dad." I gestured Molly to the door. "were done here." She knew just how to leave, excusing herself politely through the cluster of cousins and aunts. I wished I knew how to project the way she did, or the way my men did. My own family members left as soon as possible, leaving my father by himself with me, stinking of fear.

"business?"

"yeah dad."

He didn't so much close the door as much as touch the end of it to the frame. "can I sit?" He pointed toward a chair by my computer desk.

"of course. Go ahead."

He sat on the edge of the seat, swinging with only his toes on the floor. "so how are you?"

"I don't know. Fine." I grabbed one of the toys I'd never played with, hoping he would trail off, and leave."

"I... I just want to make sure you're... Francine?"

"yes dad?"

"can you look at me?"

I couldn't. "I..." I started looking for a new sweater in the dresser at the edge of the room.

"Francine. It's not your fault."

I couldn't find one. I had to find something to put over it to cover the tears that were soaking it. "what!?"

When I turned around, he shot back up, and backed away from me.

I stumbled to the floor.

He stepped forward, too afraid to touch my shoulder. "binky was insane. Anybody could've set him off. you didn't do anything wrong."

"I shouldn't have told you. You don't need to justify it to me. I'm a monster."

"no. Your my angel Francine."

"I'm no better than Muffy. She's a coke addict. She tries to hide it, but she knows that she's a piece of shit."

"What does she have to do with you honey." He finally grabbed the courage to touch my shoulder.

"I don't want to hide it anymore. I want to give it up."

"but you can baby. We have this house paid off. I can go back to my job and we can live just as nice as you wanted for us.."

"I can't!"

He pulled his hand back. the look in his eyes only made it worse. Soon he was just a blur beyond the tears. I couldn't say anything more, but how could I. I couldn't tell him I got slink killed. I couldn't tell him that more people had to die.

He picked my head off and looked at me. "you can always get out honey. Trust me, I grew up rough. I wore the gold chains and drove the nice cars, but it wasn't worth it. If its not worth it for you now than get out.

Before I could get any more tears out, a drunken idiot stumbled into the room.

"oh sorry." It was Arthur's dad. For one mad moment, I thought Arthur was coming in behind him. I wiped the tears away, and readied myself, but nobody followed. I expected the vacant eyes of a drunk to stare through me before he left, but he looked right at me, like he had noticed something, but he spoke only gibberish as he left, and I turned back to my father.

"poor bastard." He said as he sat back up on the chair, no longer looking at me . "Ed Crosswire is his only business now, but his catering is pretty much just something they bring in for fun. Ed invited me to a party once and we played a drinking game where the first person to spit out whatever we were trying had to take a drink. I think he's getting divorced too. I guess I want to give him a little money for when he ends up living above a YMCA.

"dad."

"yes honey?"

"get out."

He concealed a tear, and stepped sideways out of the door before he closed it.

I sat, fidgeting with the toy. I thought of Muffy the last time we'd hung out. Her attitude was beyond the fakeness she displayed once she had gotten her hands on my product. Arthur probably addicted her, but it wasn't like she needed the help. Everything about her was fake, from head to toe, all of it, and only to impress others. I was thankful that at least I made my lies, and crafted my schemes for the right reasons. I counted in my head how much I needed to make to support my family.

I decided on three million dollars. Nine packages needed to be sold.

"I did not put you in this position for nine packages Francine." The voice was deep, and thick with a Russian accent.

Freezing cold air touched my shoulder. I turned around, and found binky hunched over me.

"I saw your last visit to Sue Ellen. Impressive. You were able to confess your sins at the end."

"hi. binky I … how did you know what I was thinking?"

He stood back up, and gestured for me to do the same. "The elderly have much to tell us darling, even the foolish ones have great wisdom in them."

I had learned early that asking what binky meant when he said things like that was a bad idea. "Well, anyway, what are you here for?"

"I am here to tell you that Arthur must be stopped."

"Well thank you binky. I already sent a dozen men after him. There's a bounty on his head."

"Hah" he laughed with some of the first raw unpracticed emotion id seen of him since the attack on Sue Ellen. "Do you really think that pigshit you sent after him will get passed George the hammer?"

"If they can't do it, then why the fuck don't you? You put me in this situation. You connected me with the cartel, you showed me how to set up the networks. Why can't you fix this?"

"Because you must do it yourself Francine."

"Why? Why is this on me? I didn't ask for this."

"You give yourself too little credit darling. You created me." He put the hole in his cheek into the light. "it was masterful. you got control of the tough customers. It was disappointing that you could not find a connection for the cocaine, but even still, you know how to manipulate people well enough."

"and how the hell am I supposed to do that?"

"By continuing to be who you are Francine. It is rare that someone in this world is capable of what you are."

"I don't want the violence anymore. I had it all. Just one attack. Just a few cuts of the xacto, and I had it all. Now they all look at me like I'm a monster. I can't do it again. My own family can already barely look at me..."

He took out a gun, and slammed it on the computer table. I fell silent. " You are raw Francine. You are unmolded. To hone yourself, you must kill Arthur. You must kill the hammer yourself. No cronies, but you with the gun in your hand.."

I turned my back on him, my hand on the doorknob. "what happens if I refuse?"

He whispered, "Or the Elwood of my dreams will cease to be."

I turned around. The warmth had returned to the room, and the window was open.

He had left the gun on the table, half buried in the wood from the force of his slamming.

I picked it up. What could I do? I had wronged binky. I couldn't risk sparking his wrath.

I called for Molly. It was time to put on a ball at Lakewood Elementary.


	10. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

Atrhur

Open up your ears

Muffy was little more than a pathetic coke whore. She was useless but for one quality: her rivalry with Francine

Her love for me was pathetic, but useful enough. I was able convince her to stir up some anger in francine for information. I sat in my car outside of the sugar shack waiting for their date to be over. Even from outside the window I could see that she was distracted, and only sitting across from francine for the promise of my affections and a small morsel of pure coke set aside specially for her.

George sat in the car with me, staring at Muffy trough his sun glasses.

"do you ever take those things off?"

"no"

My mother threw open the door, and brought two bags of groceries into the lap of d.w. who was in the font seat, and in one of her silent dazes after the rush of energy her last bump of coke had given her.

"What is this?" I asked, pointing at the Scant number of items she had thrown on D.W.s lap.

"Money is tight Arthur. We're gonna have to make do with less for a while."

I came close to telling her that she wouldn't have to worry for long, but she deserved to suffer the idea that as the grocery list got smaller, the list of lies she would have at her disposal would too. If it werent for me, the piss poor parenting of her, and her tumor of a husband would be the doom of all of us.

She took her seat in the car, hiding her silent weeping from me.

I decided it wasn't worth the charade. I handed her a wad of fifties.

"Arthur! Where did you get this kind of cash?"

"Don't worry about it mom, just go get groceries."

She left in confused happiness.

As she left, Muffy finally returned to the car. I didn't see Francine leave but I assumed she'd wanted to duck me after what I had done to Slink.

She sat in the seat to the right of me, and the moment she closed the door she looked at me like a begging puppy. "How'd I do Arthur?"

"We'll decide how well you did when you tell us everything Francine said to you."

" I pushed her buttons and got her really angry like you said. I didn't get much out her, but she said something weird when she left. She said I was going to end up like Mr. Haney."

"The principle?" I asked

"Yeah."

"What did she say about him?"

"She said I'd end up with debt like his."

"Very good Muffy."

"T-that's it? Is that good enough?"

I couldn't tell if she wanted my affection or coke more, so I decided to give her the easiest of the two. "D.W. , hand her a gram." D.W. remained completely still.

"D.W.!" She jumped up like a dog when its owner shouted at it, the confusion on her face was only slightly greater than it was before. "D.W., a gram of coke. Now."

"Okay." She smiled excitedly, pulled out a gram from the glove compartment and stuffed her nose in the baggy.

"D.W.!" She turned around.

"What?"

"A gram for her."

"Oh...sorry." She grabbed another gram from the glove compartment and threw it behind her without looking.

George caught it before it hit my face and opened his palm so Muffy could grab it.

"Out," George whispered.

Muffy was so happy to have her coke that I think she forgot about the date I promised her. She eyed me for a second, hoping that I would tell George to let her stay in the car, and left when she realized she was no longer welcome.

D.W. opened the glove compartment after she left. "Another...another gram Arthur?"

She'd been getting greedier and greedier after I gave her the brick that Binky gave me. She went through it in a week and a half, and now she was dipping into the stuff we'd stolen from Francine. "No D.W. you're gonna have to wait until we sell this shit before you can get your next few bumps."

She slammed her head once against the window before resting it. Tapping her feet, half high. Her next fix was clearly the only thing on her mind as she waited until her inevitable crash into a dazed and confused state.

"Haney." George whispered.

"We should find out what kind of debt he's got, maybe we could put it to use." My mother came in with a cart full of groceries and drove us to our house. After some searching on my computer, me and George decided to take a trip to Lakewood Elementary.

As school ended, we walked through the halls. The faces that had once ignored me were all over me. They must've heard the rumors about what me and The Hammer had done. Soon they'd all be under me. After all these years, the dream of their subjugation was finally coming to pass.

I looked down the dark narrow hallway to my classroom and passed it before I caught a glimpse of any of my classmates.

"There," The Hammer pointed to the office of Francis Haney. I'd been in the office only a few times before, but after The Hammer had slammed it open, I walked in like it belonged to me.

The cowering little insect was hiding behind his desk before I walked in.

"Don't shoot! I paid my tribute to Francine for the last four months. Just because I was light on the last one doesn't mean I'm not gonna make good on it."

I was lucky he couldn't see me. Anyone with a sharp eye could see my confidence drop a bit. I didn't think that Francine's arms reached as far as the principal.

"I don't work for Francine."

He got up. The moment he saw me he sat back on his chair in relief. "Oh, Arthur. Sorry, your class has gotten a little crazy lately. Everyone's on edge because of Binky."

"You have no idea how afraid of Binky you should be right now."

Sweat dripped from his forehead. "Well if you wanted to talk about it, I'm always here for you kids."

"I'm here to talk about something else Haney, a proposition."

He looked like he was about to say no until he saw The Hammer walk up next to me. "Oh, um, sure."

"So you like gambling, huh?"

"What?! How did you know about that?"

"We know a lot of things. We know about your little relationship with Francine. How she promised to cover half of your debts in exchange for your tribute once you paid them back in full. I know something else Haney. I know that once you'd paid them off, you fell right back into debt. You degenerate fucking gambler."

"I just can't help myself!" His suit was unevenly put together. He looked like an old wooden deck that was falling apart from decades of rain damage.

"You're afraid aren't you? You're afraid of losing the power over those kids. You're afraid that you won't be able to pay for the privilege of being the figurehead anymore. Well I've got an out for you this time, so you can keep looking the other way while those kids suffer. You can keep your little kingdom. Hell, if you play your cards right, you can have this whole city."

"N-no, I'm sorry I can't get myself involved any further than I already am. I'd rather just resign."

"Then maybe I'll just tell the cops what you've been letting happen in your school. Hell, francine's probably paid them off too. Wouldn't you rather have someone like me in charge rather than someone who's got their hands in so much dirt?"

"Don't you play moral high ground with me, kid. You're eight. I'm an adult and I'm not gonna be chastised by some..."

I didn't even have to tell The Hammer what to do. He cut of Haney's speech with the slam of a knife into his desk.

"You gonna play ball or are you gonna keep talking back. As you said, I'm a child and I might let my emotions get the better of me."

"I'm sorry! I-I can't. I can't know if you can stop her from killing me."

I smelled the urine and heard it drip to the floor.

The Hammer grabbed Haney and threw him over his desk, forcing him to stare into the blade of the half-buried knife.

"I'll kill you right now if you keep saying no."

The Hammer grabbed him by the hair and slid his face forward so that his nose touched the edge of the blade.

"Okay! Okay, I'll play ball! What do you want me to do?"

I slammed a briefcase onto his desk filled with one of Francines five packages. When The Hammer let his face up off the desk, Haney opened it.

"There are ten teachers in this entire school. From first grade, to eighth grade, I want this stuff in every single classroom. Give each teacher ten percent of the coke and have them sell it in every period until classes end. You get two percent of everything that's made, and you'll use that to pay your gambling debts."

"What about Francine?"

"She's putting on a ball tonight right?"

"Yeah, she is."

I had The Hammer throw two hundred thousand dollars in cash onto the desk. It was all from Muffy. It was everything I had.

"George will email you a list of the things I want you to spend this money on. All of it is going towards the dance."

"But Francine had specific specifications and..."

The Hammer pulled out a gun and shot Haney in the arm. He squealed.

The Hammer put his gun to Haney's head, but before he could pull the trigger, I stopped him.

"Sorry. George is very enthusiastic. Sometimes too much so."

Despite his attempts to stop crying, Haney sobbed. Blood was streaming down his arm. "I understand. I'll do what you want. Whatever you want.

The Hammer and I left to get tuxedos for the night's events.


	11. Chapter 10

The Rhythm

He chose me.

After all the years of teasing him and silently wishing for his attention, he had finally noticed me. When he sent D.W. to sell me coke, he was really saying, "Come, chase after me." He was too wonderful an aardvark to come out to me honestly...no...the great aardvarks demand that you come after them.

All my work paid off the day I helped him get information from francine. I did so well, he decided to invite me to the ball that Francine had financed.

"How's it coming, Pookie?"

It was my instinct to close my drawer I hid my coke in, but there was nothing in it tonight, so I could rest easily for now at least. When I looked at him his eyes darted away from the desk. "That Arthur boy's outside. Are you ready to see him?"

"Of course I am, Dad. I'm all dressed up."

"And looking beautiful. Your mother..."

He couldn't say it, but I didn't want him to. We both would know any positive thing he told me about my would've been a lie he concocted "Thanks Dad."

"Your welcome sweetie." He walked me towards the stairs signaling our butler Bailey to open the door for Arthur. "This Arthur boy...he cares about you right?"

"Of course he does dad," I said weakly.

He looked at me, heartbroken. "That's good." He knelt down, "Just be careful muffin. I want you to have a boy who's gonna care about you, who's gonna take care of you."

For one ungrateful instant, I was angry. He looked at me like I couldn't take care of myself, like I was damaged. But then I realized that it was true, and my old indignance subsided.

"I will dad. Trust me."

I felt his hands tremble on my shoulder. "Hi Arthur!"

From the balcony I could see him in his tuxedo waving to us. Pathetically, I flew down the stairs, hoping for him to grab me and whisk me away. Stupid.

When I reached him, he put his hands behind his back and pointed his head towards the limo he had waiting outside.

"Nice ride, Arthur."

He stared at me unsmiling. "Didn't cost much, in the grand scheme of things. You should've let me know what you were wearing. I could've gotten you something nicer."

"Oh, um, thanks Arthur."

He looked over my shoulder. He must've caught my father's gaze, "I'll bring her back before midnight, Mr. Crosswire."

"Please do, Arthur."

His smile died on his face. "It's Mr. Read."

My father looked angry until I heard footsteps behind me. I turned around and George walked in and leant against the doorframe looking right at my father. How could such a short boy give off such a powerful presence?

"Um sorry. Please do Mr. Read."

George nodded his head and headed back to the limo. As Arthur and I began to follow, my father called to me.

"Muffy?"

I turned around, but he was already walking away. Arthur pushed me into the limo and pestered his driver to speed the entire way down to the school gymnasium. When we arrived, the place looked like a bus station filled with dozens of tour buses, the lettering on which I couldn't understand.

Every student in the school turned up in tailored tuxedos and imported dresses. "You wanna see something cool?" Artur whispered to me before tugged me towards his destination. I tripped three times in my heels, but he never stopped.

He brought me up to the tour buses where a large crowd had gathered. Before anyone in the crowd had even turned around, they stepped to the side for The Hammer as he led us through, almost like they could sense he was coming. We reached the object of the crowd's attention.

It was a beautiful long sprawling red carpet. On it walked the members of the Paris Opera's House's orchestra. I remember seeing them in a portrayal of Faust on my last birthday. I could see it in the faces of my schoolmates that none of them had any idea who they were, but still they cheered because everyone else was cheering, following each other into one gigantic bandwagon of praise.

"Drones."

When I looked at Arthur the smile was wider than it had been on his last birthday.

Soon the crowd grew even wilder than it had been before. Yo Yo Ma had just left his limo. As he walked across the carpet, I noticed the flashing of a camera on the other side.

"Who's that?" I heard someone say.

"The photographer? Probably just some journalist covering the guy's visit."

I heard Arthur whisper something to The Hammer. "I don't want her catching a picture of us together." The Hammer went under the rope and walked across the carpet, checking Yo Yo Ma's shoulder as he passed him. The photographer was mostly in the dark but I saw The Hammer pull the camera out and throw it down onto the ground.

He caught Yo Yo Ma's attention, but once they made eye contact, Ma hurried away clutching his cello case before The Hammer had crushed the camera under his boot.

Arthur grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me away. "Time to go dancing."

The moment we reached the end of the crowd he stopped, and beneath the light of a lamp post, I saw Francine on Buster's arm. She wore a gorgeous lace gown and pearls as white as the bunny that accompanied her. Buster looked like an accessory by comparison in a plain tuxedo with a tie matching the bright red of Francine's gown.

"Hey there." When Arthur had sent me to the Sugar Bowl to get answers from Francine, she seemed afraid every time he came up in the conversation but now she looked straight at him. Buster was visibly shaking as she tightened her grip. His eyes shot to his left away from Francine when Molly McDonald walked up behind him.

"Hey Francine," Arthur said as he loosened his grip on me. "Here, let me talk to my friend for a moment. It's been a little moment."

As he tried to wrestle Buster's arm away from her, Molly reached over and grabbed his wrist. "He belongs with his date. Isn't that right, Buster?"

Buster's eyes began to water as his shaking became more violent. "Um...I..."

Before Buster could answer, I felt hand pushing me to the ground. When I looked up, I saw The Hammer grab molly's wrist and twist it. I heard her squeal drown out the sound of her crunching bones.

The crowd refused to gather around us when the hammer turned around to face them. Most of the students and faculty moved like cattle into the school gymnasium.

George looked towards me. I always found it disturbing that I could tell when he was looking at me, even when he had sunglasses covering his eyes in the dark.

Arthur put his hand out for buster, and Francine let him go.

Buster fled to Arthurs arm, and we strolled into the gym behind the crowd.

"buster. What the fuck? Why are you with Francine?"

"I'm sorry Arthur. She said she'd kill my mom" His ears sagged.

"It's okay buster. I'm sure it was a joke anyway." He put his arm around busters shoulder, and let go of me. As the crowd moved, I found myself lost in it.

Once I entered the gym, what I witnessed was a wonder to behold. Beautiful tapestries covered the upper half of every wall.

They depicted the story of the founders of Elwood city, tomised read, Abraham Ratburn, and my distant ancestor, Leopold Crosswire the third.

Before I could see anything in front of me, I bumped into Mr. Haney.

"Aah!" He screamed. "Oh... sorry Muffy. I thought you were... never mind."

"Are you okay Mr. Haney?" I pointed at the cast on his arm

"Oh this? It's nothing Muffy. Just some gambling debts gone bad."

He scurried away, and I looked to find Arthur.

The people from the tour bus gathered on stage, and began playing classical music.

When I found Arthur he was seated at the first of a large array of dining tables, with the first of a sea of fresh served lobster and steak. I found buster in my seat.

"Excuse me buster."

Buster looked towards Arthur, and Arthur shook his head.

He looked at me "why don't you take busters seat at Francine's table. I could use you to get info from her again. "

I stood still, speechless.

Arthur got up, and grabbed my hand. "Why don't you go enjoy yourself."

When he took his hand off of mine, I opened it to reveal a small baggie of coke.

I attempted to conceal the tears, but ran off into the bathroom.

Walking in was like leaving a beautiful painted world for a dirty abandoned canvass left on a scummy street corner. Nothing was done to touch up the look of the gymnasium stalls. They were the same grimy, awful stinking shitholes they always were.

I picked up the baggy. There was no hesitation. I stuck my nose in and inhaled everything it contained.

The piss stained hue of the toilet turned to gold before my eyes, and the grey walls to marble.

I saw Haney's arm, slung up for support, and wrapped in a cast. I saw my hang, holding the smoking pistol as the cast fell away, and the hole reopened on his arm.

"it's my fault."


End file.
